Gaultier still has ability to shock

A model wears a design by Jean-Paul Gaultier at his Haute Couture spring-summer 2006 fashion show in Paris. Picture / Reuters

PARIS - It is sixteen years since the cone-shaped bra worn by Madonna on her Blond Ambition tour catapulted its designer Jean-Paul Gaultier to stardom.

So when the singer arrived in a black, fur-trimmed coat and sunglasses to sit front row at his haute couture show yesterday, it seemed as if another mutually beneficial collaboration might be in the offing.

The other front-row couture clients, women who can afford to spend tens of thousands of pounds on a single entirely handmade and hand-embroidered outfit, might not appreciate the near-hysteria that greets a mega-star.

But at a spring/summer couture week that has seen only a handful of singers and actresses in attendance, it was a much-needed shot of glamour.

While Madonna, whose late arrival in a swarm of paparazzi delayed Gaultier's show by an hour, has remained at the top of her game, the one-time presenter of Eurotrash and the former "enfant terrible" of French fashion has risen to become one of Paris's most esteemed designers.

He still has the ability to shock - health-conscious guests might have flinched at the sight of a handful of models who wafted lit cigarettes as they walked down his runway - but he is now part of the French fashion establishment and is seen as the natural successor to Yves Saint Laurent, who retired from fashion in 2002.

Yesterday's Grecian- and Moroccan-themed show closed haute couture week, a privilege formerly held by Saint Laurent.

The aggressively-styled corsets and bras that he created for Madonna are still a signature design for Gaultier and for spring he offered his couture clients a pale yellow pleated dress with conical bosoms encrusted with crystals.

However, for the most part this collection dispensed with the thrusting sex appeal of his early career and instead channelled a delicious mish-mash of eastern Mediterranean influences, from giant organza harem pants and a long amethyst-coloured chiffon dress ruched into Grecian pleats to Ali Babar stillettoes and a belly-dancer's outfit, stitched with blue glass beads in a mosaic pattern.

Gaultier transformed the former theatre that houses his headquarters into a exotic den, with some guests seated in swing chairs suspended from ceiling and candle-lit Moroccan lamps.

Even the wedding dress, traditionally the closing outfit of an haute couture show, was given an Middle Eastern make-over with ballooning white harem pants and a giant stiff white pleated collar that dwarfed the model's head.

- INDEPENDENT